Workplace Privacy: Employee Relations and Legal Implications of Monitoring Employee E-mail Use

The tradeoff between employees’ workplace privacy and employers’ need to protect company assets, safeguard proprietary information, and avoid costly litigation has been receiving increased attention (Lee and Kleiner 2003; Mello 2003; National Workplace Institute 2004). This tradeoff often favors employers, as the legal system provides much leeway for employers to monitor employees’ electronic communications in the workplace. However, employers need to consider the effect such monitoring has on their employees since employee and employer attitudes about monitoring often diverge. In this article, we explore workplace email monitoring from both employee relations and legal perspectives and discuss implications for employee morale.

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